Pip and Duane Brant. Through Apr 29th, 2010.
A husband and wife team, sometimes work collaboratively and sometimes side by side in different media. The combined works in this exhibition have in common the unending undulations of plant life and its defiance against wrong choices made by human intervention are reductively applied to circular canvases, crocheted marionettes and interactive simulation models.
Together they can focus their skills on complicated interactive machines that contain both motorized and fiber based elements. One thing they do love is absurd connections. This sense of absurdity is measured in collaborative works such as the Work Simulation Unit, silly motorized marionette made of cotton crocheted thread and an old lab contraption originally designed to stir solutions in test tubes. Another collaborative work is the Palm Sundae at Ivanwald. This apparatus is activated by a foot pedal that sets into motion a crystal encrusted palm leaf that is that shakes and creates a wild rustling sound.
Pip Brant, a fiber artist plays with the decorative arts to posit inquiries into social and environmental issues. Bretolt Brecht is Pip’s hero. Like him, she finds absurd connections the way to detach and coolly reflect on a subject. She also borrows from the decorative patterning of the early 20th century textile designers of the Weiner Werkstätte.
Duane Brant presents a pair of small Hoichol thread paintings that are small and jewel-like. Hoichol thread paintings are a technique borrowed from the Hoichol Indians of the Sierra Madre where thread is pressed into a wax and pitch coating on wood. Brant’s Hoichols are cartoon-like narratives that ponder inner conflicts mined from his sketchbooks.
Pip Brant works have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and abroad, including Belfast, Ireland, Lithuania and London, England. Past exhibitions include Frost Art Museum, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Hollywood Art and Culture Center, Scope NY, Scope Miami, among others. Brant has been awarded the South Florida Cultural Consortium for Visual and Media Arts, and the Wyoming Arts Fellowship and funding from the New Forms Regional Initiative for Cattle/Text Interaction. Brant attended the University of Montana where she earned her Bachelor of Arts and received her Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Wyoming. Brant grew up on the Western Plains Indian Reservations and in 1999 Brant moved to Florida where she currently resides and teaches at Florida International University.
Duane Brant received a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Montana and an Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Wyoming. He taught art for 23 years in Wyoming and currently teaches ceramics at Barry University. His works are included in collections in the Czech Republic, Toronto, San Diego, Washington DC, and the University of Wyoming Art Museum.
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